Bar Harbor parking fees need to be sensible, fair

Editor’s Note: Student Union is written by students at Hampden Academy, Brewer High School, Old Town High School, MDI High School, Ashland Community High School and Schenck High School in East Millinocket. The weekly column is a joint effort among the schools, the Bangor Daily News and Acadia Hospital. This column was written by Mount Desert High School students. Their adviser is Beth Blugermanes.

Over the years, the numbers of tourists that have come to Mount Desert Island has increased significantly, causing serious traffic problems. The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce estimates that about 3 million people visited Bar Harbor this past summer. A serious parking shortage has resulted.

To solve this problem, the alternative revenue committee, which was formed in July, proposed parking fees for certain parking lots, tour buses and cruise ships. Residents would receive free annual parking passes.

Fees would be for visitors and out-of-town employees. Employers would buy passes for their workers at a proposed charge of $75 a month. Further proposals include fees for up to 12 hours a day. The fees would be higher during the 100 days of tourist season, from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekend, and would drop to about $1 an hour in the off-season. It would cost $2-3 an hour to park at the town pier or behind the downtown district. Proposed fees would raise an estimated $620,000 a year, that would help to slow the growth of property taxes.

The committee also would like to ask nonprofit businesses to pay the town a fee in lieu of property taxes. This idea has been brought up and tried in past years, but no official plan currently exists. Town Councilor Robin Wier stated that Acadia National Park and The Jackson Laboratory are the biggest nonprofit businesses in town, and already make annual payments.

An additional proposal by the town would increase fees to tour buses and cruise ships. In the summer, Bar Harbor is as populated as Portland, Maine’s largest city, although Portland charges substantially more for both buses and ships. One large cruise ship recently had to pay $14,000 to dock for one day in Portland. In Bar Harbor, fees range from $750 to $1,000 a day. The committee recommended an increase of 25 percent to 50 percent for the 2003 tourist season. If this proposal went through it would generate about $1.3 million savings on the annual tax bill.

On Oct. 15, the council voted 4-2 to adopt a maximum acceptable tax rate increase target of 1.6 percent. This means that over the next three to five years, the tax rate would increase a total of 1.6 percent. They also approved a pilot program to fix six of the streetlights in the downtown area during the winter.

On Tuesday Oct. 29, town councilors decided to delay immediate action on the parking fee proposal. The council was expected to refer the proposal to the parking committee for review, but agreed to give the committee time to finish its own study.

Council Chairman Ken Smith says that he hopes “any final proposal would combine the best of both efforts.”

There is potential for tremendous disagreement over this proposal. Property tax relief is attractive to this community. Bar Harbor’s mill rate, at 15.7, is significantly higher than that of neighboring towns, especially when coupled with huge increases in the valuation of real estate that has not been met with corresponding increases in wages. It makes sense that tourists would pay for parking, as users are asked to pay for any limited resource. However, we need to be careful not to offend or drive tourists away.

Increased costs have the potential to hurt shopkeepers in the long run because tourists may react to the charges by visiting less frequently or spending less money at local businesses. Employers may find it more difficult to find seasonal workers. While the influx of money from elsewhere is a welcome notion, no change that punishes a single sector should be tolerated. We are looking to our town officials to do what is sensible and fair to help the community be healthy in the long run.